When carrying out certain types of floor exercises, such as sit-ups and leg-raises, it is difficult to prevent that portion of the body which is not intended to be raised from rising from the floor. People have arrived at various improvised solutions to this problem, for example by uncomfortable expedients such as tucking their hands or toes beneath heavy articles of furniture, and various purpose built restraints have also been devised for this function, but these have tended to lack versatility and have often been cumbersome in nature.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,050,652, issued Aug. 11, 1936 to Fleming, discloses a pair of foot engaging stirrups which are mounted on a frame which may be releasably clamped to the floor so as to engage beneath the lower edge of a door. U.S. Pat. No. 3,134,592, issued May 26, 1964 to Sharkey, discloses a foot restraining bar which is supported by a frame which may be clipped over the footboard of a bed. U.S. Pat. No. 3,287,016, issued Nov. 22, 1966 to Mayer, discloses a further device in which foot restraining stirrups are provided, although in this case they are carried by a free-standing frame. These devices are all intended only to engage the feet of the user, and neither of the stirrup devices provides comfortable and satisfactory hand grips, whilst the Sharkey device is only suited for use in conjunction with a footboard type bed. Most beds no longer have suitable footboards, and the bed mattress will often be too soft to provide a suitable exercising base. The Mayer device is necessarily rather bulky, and also must be fairly heavy if it is to provide the desired restraint. The clamps of the Fleming device are a disadvantage both because they may damage floor coverings and because the device may become insecure if they are not tightened properly. It is also desirable, in sit-up exercises, that the legs of the person concerned by slightly bent, since this lessens the risk of possible hernia: however, this both increases the downward restraint required on the feet and means that some support for the soles of the feet is required. It is doubtful whether the Mayer or Sharkey devices could reliably provide sufficient downward restraint, whilst none of the devices discussed supports the feet in such a manner as would restrain straightening of the knees.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,567,218, issued Mar. 2, 1971 to Johnson, describes an exercising device in which the feet of the user are engaged between two rubber covered rollers which respectively engage the soles and insteps of the feet of the user, the rollers being mounted on a support which also carries a stool across which the user performs bending exercises. Although this device provides a satisfactory anchorage for the feet of the user, the device as a whole is very bulky, and the large rubber covered rollers would not be satisfactory as hand grips. U.S. Pat.No. 3,966,200, issued June 29, 1976 to Kirk, is a device for stretching exercises, with separate hand and foot grips at opposite ends of the frame. Apart from the absence of any restraint against leg straightening, these grips would be satisfactory for individual use in leg-raising and sit-up exercises respectively, but the device as a whole is unduly bulky for this purpose, for which it is in any case not intended.
Exercising devices have also been proposed which have an anchor which hooks over or around a door, but these are arm exercising devices in which the door acts to anchor tension cords, as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 775,989 and 3,814,084 issued to Roberts and Gustafson respectively.